


Watcher

by grandfatherclock



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Community: widojest love, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 10:51:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20007109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandfatherclock/pseuds/grandfatherclock
Summary: The thing is, you don’t think he’s dirty and smelly at all. The purple coat with the fur lining looksgoodon him, form-fitting and perfect—he hunches less now, and you can see how broad his shoulders really are, now that he no longer wears those bandages and fixates his gaze to the ground and curls into himself. He eats more too, eatsbetter, and he’s no longer as waifishly thin as he was the first time the two of you met. Youlikeseeing the sharp cut of his jaw now that he shaves—the beard wasnice, butmerde, to see hisface, it makes your freckled blue facedarken—and you like watching his burnt, calloused fingers draw chalked runes on the floor, his pale blue eyes flitting from symbol to symbol, checking and double-checking.





	Watcher

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for implied/referenced torture.

You blink at his outstretched hand, widening your eyes just slightly as you stare at Caleb. He’s beautiful, of course—Caleb’s always beautiful, now that he _tries_ and no longer runs muck and mud over his pale, pretty face and combs his hair. You remember how _annoyed_ he used to be when you made fun of his smell— _really_ , you were just joking, it didn’t smell so bad and you were so _interested_ in him and his strange _leetel_ companion who drank and eyed your gold. You realize now how it came off, to have a stranger coming close into his space and making comments about his smell, about his appearance. You asked if it made him uncomfortable in the tunnels when the Mighty Nein were traversing through, trying to reach Xhorhas to find Nott’s husband, and you remember the twinge in your chest when he admitted it annoyed him at first. You remember that _high_ you felt when he said it was fine now, that he knew you and it was alright.

The thing is, you don’t think he’s dirty and smelly at all. The purple coat with the fur lining looks _good_ on him, form-fitting and perfect—he hunches less now, and you can see how broad his shoulders really are, now that he no longer wears those bandages and fixates his gaze to the ground and curls into himself. He eats more too, eats _better_ , and he’s no longer as waifishly thin as he was the first time the two of you met. You _like_ seeing the sharp cut of his jaw now that he shaves—the beard was _nice_ , but _merde_ , to see his _face_ , it makes your freckled blue face _darken_ —and you like watching his burnt, calloused fingers draw chalked runes on the floor, his pale blue eyes flitting from symbol to symbol, checking and double-checking.

He’s always _checking_ , you think. Clumsy at it as he is, more faltering with people than he is with arcane runes, he’s always _checking_. You remember that talk the two of you had in Darktow, you think about it all the damn time. You were sick in love with Fjord—or maybe not, or maybe you still are, Fjord’s yellow slitted eyes that glow in the dark and that endearing half-smile make it hard for you to tell, and so does his voice, when he kisses your cheek and calls you _Jessie_ —and he looked at you with that sympathetic gaze. He tried to comfort you and you said, _What if we can never go home?_ You remember your eyes widened, your voice catching and desperate. _Mama,_ you thought then, remembering the rush and madness of your exit from Nicodranas. Your city seemed like such a _prison_ before, but _here_ , in Darktow, with Avantika and Fjord doing whatever Avantika and Fjord wanted or needed to do, you felt so _alone_ with your milk while everyone else drank ale around you.

_We_ — he began, and then he cut himself off. There was something desperate, something shaking in his voice, and then he smoothed it all over, relaxed his expression. He met your gaze, and promised, _We’ll get you home._

_We._

_We._

We. You think about that _we_ all the fucking time. _Tell me,_ you want to shout sometimes, when you make a joke and he barks out a laugh, the sound rough in his throat. _Won’t you tell me what’s on the tip of your tongue?_

You’re at the beach in Nicodranas, and you’re watching Nott talk to Caleb, sitting cross-legged in the sand. It grits against your skin that’s no longer as soft as it used to be, hardened by bruises and scars and torture. It’s hard to think that word. _Torture._ It’s hard to think that word when it happens to _you._ Torture. Torture. _Torture._ Chains against your wrists, against your neck, against your legs. The daily humiliations that came when you had to eat, had to _pee_. They tried to make you obedient, tried to make you say words like _sir_ when you were allowed to speak at all, and you gave up on the third day, you lips so dry from lack of water you could hardly lift your head. You hate yourself for it. You hate yourself for it so much you can hardly breathe. It’s hard to admit to yourself, but in moments like _this_ , it’s fucking _easy._

He was tortured too. You can see it in his gaze and his arms and his smile. You can see it in how he interrogated that Scourger, his voice cold and _mean_. You don’t know Zemnian no matter how much you fixate your attention on his lilting accent when he speaks in Common, no matter how much your pointed ears perk up when he mumbles curse words to himself like _Scheisse_ and _Mist_ , but his beautiful language became harsh in how he spoke to her, his jaw clenched and his lips pulled into a dark smile. The Scourger had scars from interrogation that were familiar, that made your breath uneven when you saw the marks along where her sweat-stained white shirt slick against her body is torn, and when Caleb flinched back, blinking back _something_ with his back to the wall, you saw the scars on the Scourger’s arms, too. You saw how familiar she was to him _too_.

_We_ , you think. “Cayleb, you’re so good at hiding, the first time we met I hardly saw you. You don’t like being seen.” Your voice rattles in the quiet, Caleb having locked himself in his room. There was an accident in the lab, an accident with _fire_ , and Nott is cleaning it up. You were the only person in the house, the others having gone shopping for supplies for the next journey, and so you are _here_ , while Nott determines what can be salvaged from her experiment, the toxic components all over the floor. You are standing outside of his room, and you are saying these things, having lost Yasha and been held your mother—and _oh_ , she looked so _lovely_ with those dangling earrings on either side of her face, gorgeous against her deep red skin—and she told you, and the Traveler told you that’s really _alright_ , all these troubled feelings inside you are _alright_ , it’s _okay_ , but it’s so fucking hard and there are tears in your eyes and those marks on her skin were so fucking _familiar_ — “Cayleb,” you say urgently, your usually warm voice filled with _something_ , a raw brittleness and this moisture in your eyes. “I don’t like being seen _too_. I don’t.” _We,_ you think. _We._

There is no response. The wooden door is cold before you, and there is silence. You wonder if he’s sitting on the floor, his back to the wall, or maybe his desk. That would track, he’s always working—always transcribing and always _writing_ and always _thinking_. He’s always working like you’re always smiling and always joking and always laughing. You come close, putting a hand on the doorway. You imagine it might be cool to the touch for someone like Caleb, but it’s nothing compared to the coldness of your own skin. “But we have to be seen,” you whisper, leaning your forehead against the wood. Your horns scrape against it, and you hope he won’t mind. “We gotta, or we’ll… or we’ll die from everything inside of us.” Nothing, nothing, _nothing_. “Please?” Your voice kind of breaks, and there’s _nothing._

You pull away, and begin to walk away, walk out, but stiffen as you hear slight footfalls. They’re even, far too _fucking_ even—it’s a tell, one he hasn’t quite managed to perfect yet—and the door creaks open. You look over your bare freckled shoulder—you’re wearing a nice yellow dress that compliments your skin so well, your mother assured you so—and he’s leaning against the doorway. He’s taken off his nice purple coat, the one that fits him so well that you now think doesn’t fit him well at all, not when he’s looking at you like _this_ , with his mouth shut in a thin line like if he opens his mouth he might start shouting, might say something he’ll regret. His hand is outstretched towards you, and you blink.

There’s a donut in his hand. He’s looking miserable standing there, and so you walk hesitantly over, reaching for it carefully. Your hand touches his for just the barest moment, and he _flinches_ , making you pull back with this strange pastry in your own freckled blue hand. It’s got this strange blue icing on it, a shade you’ve never seen before, and you are damn _expert_ on pastries, which means this isn’t from _Nicodranas_ , when you were all walking along the winding streets while the Nicodrani sun beat down on your faces. This is _Kryn_ -made, and he gives you a weak smile as you inspect it. “I saw,” he says, his voice rough. “I saw it on the display of one of the shops, and it was… a pastry you liked, and it was blue.” His lips quirk up slightly at _blue_. “Seemed like fate, that you should have it, but I tried the other one, since I bought two, and it tastes _disgusting_.”

You let out a stilted half-laugh at _disgusting_ , and Caleb’s own smile drops, his gaze examining the tiling of the floor instead of meeting your gaze. “I’m sorry, Lavorre. Would’ve gotten a better donut. Intended for a better donut.”

You take a bite as he speaks, and Caleb sighs, his jaw shifting. You raise an eyebrow at the bitter taste exploding in your tongue and he winces at your face, pulling back and crossing his arms. His shirt sleeves are rolled down where he usually shoves them up, so his scars are hidden, but it fucking _matters_ that they aren’t bandaged, that he opened the door for you, that he gave you this shitty donut that he finds embarrassing in its poor taste. It matters, and you won’t let it embarrass him anymore. Being seen shouldn’t hurt, you don’t want it to hurt. It fucking _sucks_ that it will regardless of your intentions, but… you won’t _help_ it hurt. You won’t indulge this harm. “Thank you, Cayleb,” you say, giving him a sidelong smile.

“You don’t have to eat it,” he says, his voice quiet. He crosses his arms, and his blackened fingertips dig into the cloth of his shirt like he’s doing his bare fucking _best_ to stop himself from itching. It matters. It matters so much.

You wink at him, and he stills at that, his head tilting as his considering gaze is on you. He’s trying so hard to _check_ , even as he’s spiralling, and his thoughtfulness makes you want to wince, maybe. He’s trying to look past that smile that’s too easy on your lips, trying to look past your bright shining eyes, trying to look through that soft-not-soft skin, trying to see _this_ , trying to see _you_ , trying to see this empty solitude that stretches so vast and wide it might as well be a sea of silence. “I know I don’t _have_ to eat it,” you say, your voice teasing. Maybe something in your face fractures, because his own face _twists_ , and he opens the door wider, his breaths deliberate like he’s trying to make sure they don’t sound uneven. 

“Come in to my room,” Caleb says softly, and _oh_ , pale blue eyes, not nearly as dark as the waves lapping at the shore you could see from your childhood room window, framed with pretty white beams. “Please. Come into my room, Jester.” His arms are still crossed, still so close to his chest. Close to his heart.

You hesitate, and then you nod, purposefully not looking at his sleeved arms as you come closer, purposefully not commenting on how his shoulders tremble slightly as you pass through the threshold. You won’t make this hurt, you _won’t_. You used to, accidentally, when you wrinkled your nose at his dirt- and sweat-stained shirt when the Mighty Nein was travelling to Zadash. He avoided your gaze then, no matter how much you tried to needle and cozy up to him afterwards.

You sit on his bed, not looking pointedly at the purple coat strewn against his desk, and he sits on his chair, slumping in it slightly. You begin an easy, meandering talk, the two of you trading barbs, and he asks about your mother. _Checking,_ he’s always _checking_. You say that you cast _Sending_ _just yesterday, Cayleb, it’s fine_ , and you continue to talk, and talk, and _talk_ , until his shoulders are less tense and his smiles are a little more real and your own chest doesn’t feel so tight. You remember your argument about _money_ , and how he resolved it, how he gave you that gold despite how broken and brittle the group was at the time, and you smile. _I see you_ , you think.

He meets your gaze for a full three seconds, and you think he sees you too.


End file.
